The title of Anthony Minghella's dour "Breaking and Entering" is a metaphor. How do we know this? Well, for one thing, there's a burglary right at the start.

And the central character himself, Will Francis (Jude Law), demonstrates a fondness for metaphors in his dialogue. He's so fond of them that he even tells us he is fond of them in a climactic speech: "I don't even know how to be honest anymore. Maybe that's why I like metaphors." Then he goes on to describe a metaphor, where a circle represents his family, but it's also an enclosure or a cage, and he wants to feel comfortable in it but sometimes he feels trapped in it and sometimes he feels excluded from it. [...]

In the press notes, Jude Law spells it out: "The argument is: Is it worse to steal somebody's computer or is it worse to steal somebody's heart?" That's not even a decent metaphor (although, to be fair, the film is not about organ theft). It's simply an algebraic formulation: a > b or b > a, where "a" is "computer," "b" is "heart" and the nature of the relationship is "worse"?

Subscribe to our mailing list

Enter Your Email Address

Advertisement

The Ebert Club is our hand-picked selection of content for Ebert fans. You will receive a weekly newsletter full of movie-related tidbits, articles, trailers, even the occasional streamable movie. Club members also get access to our members-only section on RogerEbert.com